DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES:

Saddam 'killed missile chief' to thwart UN team (David Wastell and Julian Coman in Washington, 02/03/2003, Daily Telegraph)

Western intelligence agencies are investigating claims that Saddam Hussein ordered the murder of a senior Iraqi missile engineer to prevent him passing vital information to United Nations weapons inspectors.

Gen Muhammad Sa'id al-Darraj, who was in charge of Iraq's mobile Scud missiles until three months ago, died 24 hours after talks with Saddam's officials, according to Arab newspaper reports. The officials wanted to discuss how the general would conceal his knowledge if he were called for interview by the UN.

The London-based Al-Zaman newspaper said that Gen al-Darraj told "indignant" relatives shortly before he died that he had been slipped a poisoned drink during the meeting at one of Saddam's presidential palaces.

Iraqi opposition groups suspect that the general's loyalty to Saddam was in doubt after he was removed from his post at the end of last year.

British Government officials said yesterday that they were still trying to corroborate the report.

A spokeman for Jacques Chirac said that the fact that General al-Darraj will not be revealing any secrets obviously tells us that there are none to reveal. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 1, 2003 9:56 PM